Derrick Hunter, age 14, of Rock Island, I11., for his question:
HAS ITALY ALWAYS OWNED SICILY?
Sicily today is an Italian island in the central Mediterranean Sea. It has not always belonged to Italy.
Cave paintings and tools tell us that prehistoric people first lived in what is now Sicily. Then during the 8th century B.C., the Greeks colonized the eastern part of the island and the Carthaginians founded trade settlements in the western part.
It wasn't until the 3rd century B.C. that the Romans conquered the island and made Sicily their first province. In the early days, Sicily grew grain for the Roman Empire.
When Rome declined during the 5th century A.D., the Vandals and the Ostrogoths conquered Sicily. And then in 535, the island came under the control of the Byzantine Empire. Greek became the official language of the island's people.
The Saracens replaced the Byzantine rulers in the 800s, and Sicily flourished during the 200 years of Moslem rule. Then during the 11th century, the Normans took control. Under them, the island's culture gradually became Western European. Then in the 1200s, Germany and later France ruled Sicily. After an uprising in 1282, Spain took over and ruled for 400 years.
In the 1700s, Sicily became part of the Bourbon Kingdom. After the Italian patriot Giuseppe Garibaldi invaded Sicily in 1860, the people on the island revolted against the Bourbon rule. Sicily then became part of the Kingdom of Italy.
During World War II, the Allies occupied all of Sicily after making a first landing on the southeastern coast of the island on July 10, 1943. The island then became the springboard for the Allied invasion of Italy. In 1948, it became a semi independent political region of Italy.
Today Sicily is one of Italy's 20 governmental units called regions. Palermo, a center of industry and trade, is the capital, and also the largest city and chief seaport of Sicily.
Today Sicily has a mixture of all the civilizations that once ruled the island. Italian is spoken widely, but there are local dialects that have traces of Arabic, Greek and other languages.
The people of Sicily have strong bonds of family and friendship. Some Sicilians, because of many years of foreign rule, distrust all forms of government. They have a code of honor, called omerta, that forbids telling the police about crimes considered to be private affairs.
A serious problem in Sicily is the widespread power of the Mafia, an illegal secret organization with roots deep in Sicilian life. The Mafia has committed many crimes. But the people's fear of these criminals, and their strong sense of omerta, has largely blocked government efforts to fight the group.
During the 1900s, thousands of Sicilians moved to the United States. Since 1945, large numbers of workers have settled in northern Italy, France, Germany and Switzerland.